Disappointed the Vodacom Bulls left points on the field in the Vodacom United Rugby Championship final, Jake White implied the officiating cost the visitors a realistic shot at the title. DYLAN JACK reports.
Referee Andrew Brace was on the whistle in the inaugural URC final on Saturday as the Bulls let a seven-point second-half lead slip in an 18-13 defeat to the Stormers.
Despite dominating both territory and possession in the first half, the Bulls could not build on inside centre Harold Vorster’s second-minute try as the Stormers withstood wave after wave of attack in the first 30 minutes of the match.
That was in part due to the excellent work from veteran Stormers flank Deon Fourie, who took full advantage of the leeway given at the breakdown to win multiple breakdown turnovers when the home side was under pressure.
After the match, a visibly emotional White refused to directly criticise the referee, but was evidently frustrated by the handling of the breakdown and offsides line.
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“It is what it is. I didn’t think we were ever going to win that game,” said White. “I thought the ref was outstanding, he saw what he saw. I couldn’t control the other things. There are other controllables which we couldn’t control. You guys can work it out yourselves. I’m not going to get into it. The ref only saw what he saw. At the end of the day, it’s all you want a ref to do, is see what he sees.
“There were things tonight which we couldn’t control. We were never going to control them. I’ve told the players that. We are going to have to just put our heads down and when those things change, we will be OK.
“I thought the referee was outstanding, don’t misquote me. The referee was outstanding. What he saw, he blew and I am happy with that. I can never argue with the referee.
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“You don’t want to sound like whinger and I have to teach my players to be humble when we lose. There were a couple of times they went for the ball, they missed it, they came back and got it again and got rewarded. Now that’s fine and if the referee sees that, that’s great.
“At half time they got into our half, got a penalty for offsides. We got into their half about six times and never got a penalty for offsides. We can’t control those things, I mean, it’s not up to the referee, is it?”
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White did, however, admit that the Bulls should have better translated their first half-dominance into points.
“From a rugby point of view, we maybe should have been up by more at half time. I think we had so much territory there which we didn’t finish. As I said, the ref saw what he saw. He saw certain things on the field, blew it like that and I am happy with that. This hurts a bit, it does hurt. I got the feeling we were out of it the whole time, small little things.
“We had our chances and from a rugby point of view I can’t complain. We needed to finish those things off and we didn’t.”
White also refused to buy into the narrative of the Stormers being the underdogs of the tournament, despite the fact that Western Province Rugby was on the brink of financial collapse last year and still remains under administration.
“I don’t know about that. They’ve got five World Cup-winning Springboks and nine guys in the Springbok side and you are making out as if they had no chance. We lost five games out of six, were 15th on the log, we don’t have one Springbok. If they picked the team tomorrow, we wouldn’t have one guy in the team. You tell me who would start in the first 23 for South Africa.
“Taking nothing away from Dobbo [Stormers coach John Dobson], but don’t be blinded. I would love five World Cup-winning Springboks and four players in the Springbok camp tomorrow. But well done to him. He said he wants to beat me and he has beaten me.”
Photo: Shaun Roy/BackpagePix
